"Dialectics" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from the restrictions on the liberty of conscience imposed by the Pilgrim Fathers. There, at last, complete freedom of dissent was found, and one of the consequences was that the colony became a sort of field for Christian dialectics, where the most extreme doctrines on all points of Christian belief were discussed without other or more serious results of the odium theologicum than the building of many meeting-houses and the multiplication of sects. Among these sects was one which played ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... third plane we come to psychological plausibility, the plausibility of events dependent mainly or entirely on character. For example—to cite a much disputed instance—is it plausible that Nora, in A Doll's House, should suddenly develop the mastery of dialectics with which she crushes Helmer in the final scene, and should desert her husband and children, slamming the door ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... the earth. It may be that the noblest tradition is but the offspring of material conditions, of the hard necessities besetting men's precarious lives. But once it has been born it becomes a spirit. Nothing can extinguish its force then. Clouds of greedy selfishness, the subtle dialectics of revolt or fear, may obscure it for a time, but in very truth it remains an immortal ruler invested with the power of ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... Marquis de Jouffroy. After carrying on its ravages for a longer or shorter time under one form, the monster takes another, and the economists, who think that he has gone, cry out: "It was nothing!" Tranquil and satisfied, provided they insist with all the weight of their dialectics on the positive side of the question, they close their eyes to its subversive side, notwithstanding which, when they are spoken to of poverty, they again begin their sermons upon the improvidence and ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... that life of struggle against debt, ridicule and unkind condition that was to continue for forty-seven years; never out of debt, never free from attacks of enemies; a life of wordy warfare and inky broadsides against cant, affectation and untruth—with the weapons of his dialectics always kept well burnished by constant use; hated and loved; jeered ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... in London literary society, and was busy making for himself a huge private reputation. The Christmas Day of 1758 witnessed a singular scene at the dinner table of David Garrick. Dr. Johnson, then in full vigour of his mind, and with the all-dreaded weapons of his dialectics kept burnished by daily use, was flatly contradicted by a fellow-guest some twenty years his junior, and, what is more, submitted to it without a murmur. One of the diners, Arthur Murphy, was so struck by this occurrence, unique ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... enough of fighting; and perhaps he had succeeded in proving to his relatives that neither arms nor agriculture were his vocation; for we next find him on his way to St. Andrews, "to hear John Major who was then teaching dialectics or rather sophistry." Here he would seem to have studied for two years; taking his degree in 1525 at the age of nineteen. After this he followed Major to France, whether for love of his master, or with the idea that Major's interest ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... glorification; some, like birds, in their levity and ambition soaring to the height and brightness of physical things; others like young puppies, as Plato[265] says, rejoicing in tearing and biting, betake themselves to strifes and questions and sophisms; but most plunging themselves into dialectics immediately store themselves for sophistry; and some collect sentences[266] and histories and go about (as Anacharsis said he saw the Greeks used money for no other purpose but to count it up), merely piling ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... and Kennicott trying to determine by dialectics whether the copy of the Dauntless, which Aunt Bessie wanted to send to her sister in Alberta, ought to have two or four cents postage on it. Carol would have taken it to the drug store and weighed it, but then she was a dreamer, while they were ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... Special topics. Mind and body. Philosophic systems. Mental faculties, psychology. Logic, dialectics. Ethics. Ancient philosophers. Modern. ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... it, was elected its prior, attracted to it by his learned teaching a host of pupils, and won therein his own great renown whilst laying the foundation for that of the abbey of Bee, which was destined to be carried still higher by one of his disciples, St. Anselm. Lanfranc was eloquent, great in dialectics, of a sprightly wit, and lively in repartee. Relying upon the pope's decision, he spoke ill of William's marriage with Matilda. William was informed of this, and in a fit of despotic anger, ordered Lanfranc to be driven from the monastery and banished from Normandy, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... excellent hearts, and the most enlightened and cultivated understandings." His only criticism of the conversation of that day (1797-1802) concerned itself with the prevalence of that form of Scotch humor which was called wut, and with the disputations and dialectics. We were more fortunate than Sydney Smith, because Edinburgh has outgrown its odious smells, barbarous sounds, and bad suppers, and, wonderful to relate, has kept its excellent hearts and its enlightened and cultivated understandings. ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... pleased. Mr. Webster grappled with the argument and with the man; and it is curious to watch that spectacle of a meeting between two such hostile minds. Each is confident of the strength of his own position; each is eager for a close hug of dialectics. Far from avoiding the point, they drive directly towards it, clearing their essential propositions from mutual misconception by the sharpest analysis and exactest statement. To get their minds near ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... astrology, alchemy, optics, the canon law, and the divinity of the schoolmen for ink-horn terms and similes. He was in verse what Browne was in prose. He loved to play with distinctions, hyperboles, paradoxes, the very casuistry and dialectics of love or devotion. ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... N. {ant. 477} reasoning ratiocination rationalism; dialectics, induction, generalization. discussion, comment; ventilation; inquiry &c 461. argumentation, controversy, debate; polemics, wrangling; contention &c 720; logomachy^; disputation, disceptation^; paper war. art of reasoning, logic. process of reasoning, train of reasoning, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... wings to the arrows. It makes arguments to be wrought in fire rather than in frost. It lights the enthusiasm which cannot despair, the diligence that will not weary, the fervour that often goes farther to sway other minds than the sharpest dialectics of a passionless understanding. There are causes in which an unimpassioned advocacy is worse than silence; and this is one of them. The word of the living God which has saved our souls and brought to us all that makes our natures ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... serious moment, he whom they called "the Carthaginian disputer" was sorry not to be able to measure himself in a bout of dialectics with his half-dead friend. The intellectual poison had so perverted his mind, that it almost destroyed in him the feelings of common decency. But if his head, as he acknowledges, was very much spoiled, his heart remained intact. His friend died a few days after, and ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... there a dissenting voice was raised against the doctrine in its strict physical form. The great body of the Scholastics stood stanchly by it. In defence and support of the Church thesis they brought all the quirks and quiddities of their subtle dialectics. As we take down their ponderous tomes from their neglected shelves, and turn over the dusty, faded old leaves, we find chapter after chapter in many a formidable folio occupied with grave discussions, carried on in acute logical terminology, of questions ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... past for the mental attitude: "Revolution is atrocious. Sir, there is no revolution." Likewise should the time be past for that other familiar attitude: "Socialism is slavery. Sir, it will never be." It is no longer a question of dialectics, theories, and dreams. There is no question about it. The revolution is a fact. It is here now. Seven million revolutionists, organized, working day and night, are preaching the revolution—that passionate gospel, the Brotherhood of Man. Not only is it a cold-blooded ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London |
